Primary health care in Greece and in Western Europe during the years of economic crisis

Primary Health Care (PHC) in Greece lags behind over time in adopting the principle of Alma Ata. From the description of Introduction of PHC of Germany, Great Britain, Sweden and Nederland, we conclude several similarities and significant differences in the organization, providing, financing and compensation of medical staff depending on special feature of each health care system. On the other hand, PHC in Greece shows significant weaknesses –fragmentation and lack of strategic planning, understaffing and underfunding, not highly qualified and goal-oriented staff in PHC, inequalities, discontinuity in care, low efficiency, absence of planning- which make it difficult and fragmented the operation of new outpatient clinics. The reforms of the health sector from 2009 until today, mainly with the law 3918/2011 and 4338/2014 for the establishment of E.O.P.Y.Y and P.E.D.Y, have focused on horizontal cuts and sharing the cost to the citizens. For the requirements of the review, research and review papers were searched within the PubMed, Scopus and Google Scholar database, while data were drawn upon O.E.C.D (Organization for Economic COoperation and Development), ELSTAT (Hellenic Statistical Authority) and WHO (World Health Organization) about PHC in those countries from 2008 up to March 2016

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